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The
salvation of reality is its obstinate, irreducible, matter-of-fact
entities, which are limited to be no other than themselves... That
which endures is limited, obstructive, intolerant, infecting its
environment with its own aspects. But it is not self-sufficient. The
aspects of all things enter into its very nature... Conversely it is
only itself by lending its aspects to this same environment in which it
finds itself. The problem of evolution is the development of enduring
harmonies of enduring shapes of value, which merge into higher
attainments of things beyond themselves. Aesthetic attainment is
interwoven in the texture of realisation.
Science and the Modern World.
Viewed
as primordial, [God] is the unlimited conceptual Realization of the
absolute wealth of potentiality. In this aspect, he is not before all
creation, but with all creation. But, as primordial, so far is he from
'eminent reality', that in this abstraction he is 'deficiently actual'
- and this in two ways. His feelings are only conceptual and so lack
the fullness of actuality. Secondly, conceptual feelings, apart from
complex integration with physical feelings, are devoid of consciousness
in their subjective forms.
Process and Reality. p. 343
There
is another side to the nature of God which cannot be omitted... God, as
well as being primordial, is also consequent. He is the beginning and
the end. He is not the beginning in the sense of being in the past of
all members. He is the presupposed actuality of conceptual operation,
in unison of becoming with every other creative act. Thus, by reason of
the relativity of all things, there is a reaction of the world on God.
The completion of God's nature into the fullness of physical feeling is
derived from the objectification of the world in God... God's
conceptual nature is unchanged, by reason of its final completeness.
But his derivative nature is consequent upon the creative advance of
the world.
Process and Reality. p. 345
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Thus,
analogously to all actual entities, the nature of God is dipolar. He
has a primordial nature and a consequent nature. The consequent nature
of God is conscious; and it is the Realization of the actual world in
the unity of his nature, and through the transformation of his wisdom.
The primordial nature is conceptual, the consequent nature is the
weaving of God's physical feelings upon his primordial concepts.
Process
and Reality. p. 345
Religion
is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the
passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet
waiting to be realised; something that is a remote possibility, and yet
the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that
passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the
final goal, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the final
ideal, and the hopeless quest.
Science
and the Modern World.
The
immediate reaction of human nature to the religious vision is
worship... The vision claims nothing but worship; and worship is a
surrender to the claim of assimilation, urged with the motive force of
mutual love. The vision never overrules. It is always there, and it has
the power of love presenting the one purpose whose fulfilment is
eternal harmony... The worship of God is an adventure of the spirit, a
flight after the unattainable.
Science
and the Modern World.
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